Going Vegan

Whaaaaaaat? Seriously?

I thought your front license plate says "EAT BEEF." I thought you're from Kansas and your father grew up on a farm? I thought you consider a plate of food without meat a non-meal? And milk? I thought you loved milk, drink it all the time?

All of the above are true. What's also true is that I've been reading a lot lately and learning about what's good for you in the long run. I just want to TRY the whole vegan thing out. Just for 2 weeks. I promise.

Here are a few reasons why:

1. I'm always interested in how to make my diet healthier. Since I work in healthcare, I feel the responsibility to pass on only the best and most helpful information to my patients.

2. A few blogs I've been reading from cancer survivors have let me realize that eating a plant-based diet isn't that hard. They usually post great recipes and I've tried a few!

3. I'm reading the book The China Study. It's pretty hard to argue with. Basically the research has shown that people who eat plant-based diets live longer and have less disease than people who eat animal-based diets.

4. I just went grocery shopping and it was a breeze! I spent most of my time in the produce section, and very little in the other aisles.

5. I've also recently seen Dr. Sanjay Gupta's (CNN medical guy) documentary on heart disease and in it, he talks about plant-based diets, including the hometown Austin Engine2 diet.

So here we go. I wanted my menu to not be all vegetables and grains - I wanted to try some substitutions and see if they measure up. I'll let you know when I make sloppy joes out of the meatless meat grounds I found. (It's really just fungi.)

Here's to the next two weeks!

Lost and Found

Sorry for the hiatus. I moved to a different house, then started D-School at my church, so I haven't had much time to blog. I've had countless stories to tell, but just not enough time to type them out. Here's the latest:

This past weekend we went to a conference in Waco called World Mandate. We decided to leave after Saturday night's session, so it was about 10:00 before we headed out to the cars. I had looked in my purse for my glasses earlier in the evening, but not finding them, assumed they were in the car. I also had noticed that my Bible reading plan (on cardstock) was not in my journal - I assumed this was in the car as well. However, when I got to the car, I didn't find them. Either. We were eager to get on the road even though it's only a 1.5 hour drive, so I got super frustrated that I couldn't find them and we had to leave. So, Dawn said a prayer and we got on the road.

I started calling everywhere I could think of - the hotel, Jason's Deli, Pei Wei, etc - but no one had seen them. My frustration lasted until Sunday morning church, where I finally decided to TRUST that God would either restore the glasses to me (at this point I was thinking they were lost for good), or provide financially for their replacement. I was still bummed about it and during work on Monday was really not doing well with the whole eyesight-without-glasses thing, but I knew God would provide.

This is turning into a long story, but I have to tell you how at loss I was when I didn't have my Bible reading plan. That's all I've been doing this year during my devotional time - reading once through the Bible - and so I had no clue what to do. Fortunately, God did! In D-school, we've been reading through my pastor's book on prayer, so I decided to go with the new and try something different. It was amazing! All I did for 45 minutes was write out all the reasons I'm thankful. At the end, I thought it'd be good to read a Psalm, so I opened my Bible up and BAM! there's my reading plan! I just laughed! God has such a sense of humor and knows what's best for me. I'm still not sure if He wants me to finish the plan this year, but I know that I'm enjoying my devotional time A WHOLE LOT more.

I also got a sense on Tuesday morning that today was a day of restoration; I was going to find my glasses. I went through most of the day still bummed and trying to think where my glasses were. Around dinnertime, before my small group arrived at our house, I texted a friend who's car we had ridden in for like maybe 20 minutes. It was my last thought of where they could be. Knowing it was a long shot, I left my phone on the kitchen table. After our group finished, I was chatting with my small group when I noticed I had a text. Not expecting much, I opened it up and in response to my "Did you see my glasses in your car?" she had said "Yeah, I saw them earlier." That's it. Casual. Yeah, they're in there.

I FREAKED! I started jumping up and down and yelling! Then I called her and asked hurriedly, you have my glasses? Really? Really really really really?!?!!?!??! It was great! I finally had both the items that I lost.

I realized later that while the conference was really good, what God really wanted to teach me was through what I lost and gained back. What I learned was to trust that He will provide, no matter what. And He can take away things that aren't healthy for our good. See, I was meeting with the Bible instead of meeting with God in my devotional time, and He wanted desperately to talk to me, listen to me, hear my heart, etc. Throughout the whole ordeal, I could just picture God smirking. I knew He was up to something.